I dozed, with the Tacoma idling, in front of Lorna’s house. Dim lights from the dashboard gave the interior of the truck an enchanting glow. Widely separated street lamps spilled diffused, yellow light onto the cracked pavement, and the moon winked from its last crescent through sparse clouds. 

Lorna’s street side windows stared into the undefinable dark like a pair of frightened eyes.

It had taken Tony all of the ride back to convince me that waking the household at midnight was counterproductive.

“Just sit on it. If she moves,” he’d told me, scanning the darkened street. “You can grab her then.” His main goal was to have enough time to get over to Libby and roust a less compromised Sheriff’s officer. 

As much as I wanted to ignore good advice, his reminder that the child had been traumatized enough hurt my soul. My zeal to free Renée was working hard against common decency.

So I dropped Tony at his car and sat in the truck. The air was heavy with the scent of exhaust from the Tacoma’s engine, mixing with the musty smell of Jenkins’ house that still clung to my coat. An aftertaste of cold coffee from a half-empty thermos under the seat lingered on my tongue. 

It was damn cold, but well deserved.

Still, I slept. The worn leather seats gave me comfort, inside the cocoon of the Tacoma. Darkness of night enveloped me like a thick blanket, and I drifted into a non-violent slumber, convinced by Tony’s wise words to leave the household untouched in their peaceful delusions. A slight chill seeped through the windows, causing a gentle shiver along my arms. 

First light woke me with a start, Vicky’s guilt gurgling up from the drain of dreams. It bubbled and popped with crispy certainty, painting a vivid image of Vicky’s angry form dragging her tiny sister toward a freight car full of screaming children. A hard shake of my head only turned up Renée’s image, curled up in the jail cell, where her  bony frame abruptly unfurled and began to wail. Discovery of Vicky’s horrifying actions would destroy her. I couldn’t be wrong about this. A mistake might kill my sister from the inside out.

Muscles stiffened to near rigor mortis, I stretched them as much as the cab would allow. An icy kick of cold coffee from the thermos bathed my nerves, before I tumbled into the chilly morning. 

Barely visible in the cold fog of dawn, I could make out Kayla playing in the yard wearing footy pajamas. The weathervane was silent, temperature hovering around a balmy forty degrees. Her yellow Matchbox front loader sat to the side of a well-graded parking area. A group of the miniature toy cars were lined up like the cars on my sales lot.

“Hey little girl,” I said. “Isn’t it hard to see in this light?”

“I see good in the dark,” she said, her tiny hand straightening vehicles.

Snug comfort warmed my chest at the sound of her child-sized voice. It held strength. Determination.

“Mommy doesn’t like it. When I go into the woods. But I can see good out there.”

“It probably makes her scared that she’s left all alone.”

“She has boyfriends. They keep her company.”

That checked my heart. “Where is Mommy?”

“Sleeping. Sissy too.”

I squatted beside her. Questions about what she saw that terrible night charged into my thoughts. Her innocence kept me from speaking them aloud, and breaking the delicate balance. 

“Looks like a pretty good run of vehicles you’ve got there.”

“This one is a Roly Roy Silver Shadow. Daddy’s favorite. Only it’s not silver.” She placed the miniature metallic red icon in my hand for inspection.

“One of my favorites, as well.” The prospect of ruining her relationship with sissy loomed large. “You know Johnny Cash owns one. So did Freddie Mercury of the music group Queen.”

“The Queen owns one, too,” she said.

I chuckled. “You are very knowledgeable little miss. How about we go inside and talk to Sissy.” I didn’t like the idea of leaving her in the front yard. Also, it gave me a reason to enter the house without an invite.

Kayla stood and clutched my hand around the Silver Shadow and we walked to the door. She led me inside, just as Vicky stumbled into the kitchen.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

I knelt beside Kayla. “Why don’t you go check on Mommy.”

She trotted off without question.

“I don’t know why she listens to you,” Vicky said to the coffee maker. “She doesn’t listen to anyone.”

“She listened to you when you hauled her off to the Jenkins.” It was a stab in the dark. A new idea I had about what happened to Kayla during those lost hours. That she hadn’t been with Aidan most of that time at all. Her torn up shoes and body. She’d crossed a lot of hard ground to get to her daddy.

Vicky’s shoulders twitched, but she didn’t turn around. “What are you talking about?”

I held up the paperwork I’d found at the avowed freedom fighter’s house. “What does this mean, Vicky?”

 She twisted her neck enough to see that I held something. “What is it?”

“It’s a birth certificate. Or, rather, a forgery of a birth certificate that says you are the mother of Kayla Peale.”

She remained silent, scooping coffee into the filter, running water into the glass pot.

“To my mind, it connects the dots between you and an illegal adoption deal with Hugh Jenkins somewhere in the middle. Maybe you thought it would protect Kayla from your delusional father.”

The hunch in Vicky’s shoulders revealed her bristle. She refused to look at me. “How could you believe such a thing? She’s my sister for God’s sake! What do you take me for? Some kind of animal?”

I wasn’t prepared to answer the question. She was absolutely an animal if she tried to sell her own sister. I cringed and shuddered at the idea of it. My mind spun the concept around, searching for an angle that permitted a degree of empathy. Every viewpoint generated increasing levels of revulsion. In fact, there was no human explanation that made sense. Why else would someone sell a little girl? The problem was the potential danger of confronting her about being a beast of that caliber. It meant she was capable of anything. And I didn’t have enough to make a legal case. The accusation could cause her to bolt. She could take the girl and run. It wouldn’t help Renée and I’d be further from the truth than ever.

“Explain it to me, Vicky. How did this well-crafted birth certificate wind up at the Jenkins’ home?”

She turned around and took hold of one corner. “I’ve never seen this thing.” She gave it a flick with her fingers.

I snapped the page. “This isn’t your signature?”

Vicky turned back to the coffee maker to watch it boil. “I told you, I’ve never seen it. Why would someone want to do that anyway?”

“So you didn’t take Kayla to the Jenkins’?”

“I never said that. Faye Jenkins offered to watch Kayla. I planned to talk to my mother. She won’t let Kayla go to the Jenkins.”

“Won’t let her?” I scowled.

Vicky haphazardly waved her hands in the air. “She’s convinced the urchin will get herself lost in the junk pile Hugh calls a yard. I told Faye I’d talk to Mom because she needs the money babysitting would bring in.”

That couldn’t be true. Faye had the diner and no time to babysit. I left it unsaid.

“But your mother let them watch you,” I stated, face pinched at the absurdity.

“The Jenkins always treated me well,” she said with eyes wide and full of disbelief. “I don’t know why Mother stopped taking me out there. And that junk pile is no worse than the mess she would get into at Aidan’s place.”

I didn’t have a good argument against her logic. My mouth wanted to bring up the dead deputy’s relationship with Hugh Jenkins. Or bring up her father’s death, probably by the hands of Hugh Jenkins, the man she left her baby sister in the care of. But I could see the wildness ripple beneath her thin shirt, anxious electricity akin to a cornered lynx.

The coffee was nearly done dripping into the carafe, dark droplets rippling the surface, rich aroma mixing with the tangy scent of hot metal. The anticipation of taking a sip of the freshly brewed eye-opener was palpable, full of promise to clear the mud settling in from Vicky’s argument. 

It didn’t seem prudent to stick around for a cup. A detective can only handle so many lies an hour.

“You might want to check in to this fake birth certificate, Vicky. Make sure no other copies are floating around town.” 

I spun on my heal and hit the door, a tiny ache building inside for not saying goodbye to Kayla.